Farid’s team took a huge, high-resolution photograph of a painting by Perugino—best known for his Sistine Chapel frescoes.

Starting with an 8-by-10-inch nagative, the photograph was digitized into 16,852 by 18,204 pixels, divided into sectors, and run through a series of filters and algorithms.

With the help of its software, Farid’s group then concluded what many art historians had long suspected: one artist—presumably Perugino—painted the Madonna and one canonized pair, while three other artists—presumably Perugino’s understudies—composed the remaining faces.

Some art historians have responded with skepticism.

And when he’s not working, he’s often perusing museums and galleries for inspiration: from modernism to primitivism to Renaissance art.

The latter is where Farid’s group focused its recent studies into art forgery/authenticating.

Art forgery can be extremely lucrative, but modern dating and analysis techniques have made the identification of forged artwork much simpler.